Date formatter for javascript

Question

I just coded this formatter to format timestamps in javascript (I tied it to underscore for convenience), any remark?

_.toDate = function(epoch, format, locale) { 
 var date = new Date(epoch),
 format = format || 'dd/mm/YY',
 locale = locale || 'en'
 dow = {};
 dow.en = [
 'Sunday',
 'Monday',
 'Tuesday',
 'Wednesday',
 'Thursday',
 'Friday',
 'Saturday'
 ];
 var formatted = format
 .replace('D', dow[locale][date.getDay()])
 .replace('dd', ("0" + date.getDate()).slice(-2))
 .replace('mm', ("0" + (date.getMonth() + 1)).slice(-2))
 .replace('yyyy', date.getFullYear())
 .replace('yy', (''+date.getFullYear()).slice(-2))
 .replace('hh', date.getHours())
 .replace('mn', date.getMinutes());
 return formatted;
}

usage

_.toDate($.now(), "dd-mm-yy at hh:mn");
// Will output:
"27-03-13 at 17:20"

• Wouter J: I like it (except that I'll stick to some commonly used format, for instance the one php uses)

Answer 1

I would use a library that is designed for this, such as Moment.js. It is a lot more flexible, and has internationalization support also.

Answer 2

What happens when you add the Hungarian locale

dow.hu = [
 'vasárnap',
 'hétfő',
 'kedd',
 'szerda',
 'csütörtök',
 'péntek',
 'szombat'
]

and try to format

_.toDate(new Date(2013, 07, 30, 12, 0, 0, 0), 'D dd mm, yy', 'hu');

?